Delivering Quality Early Learning In Low-Resource Settings: Progress And Challenges In Ethiopia

The potential of high quality early childhood care and education ECCE programmes to deliver positive outcomes for children and society is well recognised. But delivering on this potential presents huge challenges, especially in low and middle income countries. This final working paper in the Transitions in Early Childhood series focusses on Ethiopia. While in many respects Ethiopia is a success story of Education For All, in terms of increased enrolments in primary education, the early years of schooling is faced with numerous access and quality challenges. This working paper reviews the government of Ethiopia's 2010 policy framework for ECCE and highlights these different challenges in rural and urban areas of Ethiopia, drawing on survey and qualitative research data collected as part of Young Lives longitudinal research

Evaluation of Progressive Web Application to develop an Offline-First Task Management App

Adding more features to web apps progressively to feel and work like native apps is a recent design philosophy. This research study was conducted on Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) to develop an offline-first task management app. The main idea of Pmain goalancing web apps gradually by adding new features to existing or new web applicenable developersowser support. Hence, the main goal of this study was to explore PWAs features available in the browsers,thoroughly reviewe developers to implement an offline-first web applications. The study was carried out in two ways. The first part thoroughly reviewed theories about the web, native apps, and PWAs features that are available in browsers. An the thesisst task management app called Annual Clock was designed and implemented for Aalto universThe applicationd part of the thesis. To implement the app, React.js was used for the frontthe end and Node.js for the baa ckend. The application was fully impthe lemented using most PWA features to work offline, install on home screen, load fast, send push notification, etc. To conclude, the implemented app presents solutions to most offline-first web app problems and will be used as a valuable reference for the university and other researchers who would like to develop an offline-first PWAs. Nonetheless, there are many areas left untouched and need to be solved in the future like saving images, audios and videos in browser storage, increasing the size of browser storages for large data and background synchronization support by all browsers

Investing in Agricultural Mechanization: A Means to Realize Crop Production Targets for the Growth and Transformation Plan (GTP) of Ethiopia

Ethiopian economy is dominated by the agriculture sector and its contribution is vital to the national growth domestic product (GDP). Accordingly, cropproduction, will remain the major source of growth in the growth and transformation plan (GTP) of Ethiopia. Increasing the productivity of the smallholder farmers through scaling up of best practices, expansion of irrigation, natural resource conservation, production of high value crops and  encouraging the private sector are among the strategic approaches in the GTP of the country. In realizing this, improved agricultural mechanization  technologies must be taken as one of the critical factors as they enhance production and productivity through timeliness, better quality of operations and  precision in application of biological and chemical inputs. Furthermore, they can contribute to adaptation to climate variability and change and  addressing social issues of gender and youth. Therefore, this paper discuses the need for investing in agricultural mechanization sector through  formulating clear strategies that encourage the whole value chain and developing the capacity of stakeholders that guarantee the availability and sustained use of the technologies to meet the envisaged targets.&nbsp

Land Tenure and Land Management Technology: A Case Study from the Central Ethiopia

Land in Ethiopia is a public property. Farmers have use right to transfer or lease use rights of agricultural land. Thus, land tenure systems under the existing public ownership of land derive from official allocation by local government authorities and/or through transfer of land use rights. Farmers\u27 practice of leasing agricultural land in the country is mostly limited to a few years, for instance to maximum of three years in one agreement. The common types of transaction of agricultural land include inheritance, cash renting, sharecropping and gift. The process and act of land transfer among land users, however, is often non-transparent. The transaction usually takes place informally. The land lease market (sharecropping and cash rental) is constrained, inter alia, by lack of clear rules and regulations for secure and transparent land lease transaction. Such situation is therefore expected to influence farmers to differentially manage leased-in and own land parcels in terms of application of sustainable land management technologies. On the other hand, however, most of the agricultural land in Ethiopia requires conservation-based land management technologies. The objective of this paper is to analyze land tenure systems and examine the impact of land tenure systems on the use of land management technologies and draw policy lessons

Impact of soaring food price in Ethiopia: Does location matter?

"Previous studies implicitly assume uniform price-effects across regions or provinces within countries. They also do not address the issue of integration between the world food market and local markets. Instead, they assume a complete transmission of changes in world food prices to local food prices. In this paper, we first establish evidence of regional price heterogeneity across Ethiopia. We also applied the Johansen test for market integration over 95 local maize markets and found that none of the Ethiopian regional markets for maize is integrated to the world market. However, there is significant short-term price effects between the world maize market and some Ethiopian regional markets. Using the Almost Ideal Demand System, we estimate loss in household consumption and calorie intake as induced by food price increases. The results suggest a great deal of heterogeneity across regions as well as between rural and urban areas. Studies that fail to account for the characteristics of household demand across locations are more likely to induce misleading policy recommendations. " from authors' abstractPrice, Integration, Demand, Elasticity, Poverty, Food prices, maize,

Indicators for Gauging the Effectiveness of Dairy Extension in Ethiopia

Modern extension system is being undertaken since 1950s in Ethiopia. However, majority of the farmers still use traditional dairy practices. This study was carried out to assess the effectiveness of dairy extension in disseminating dairy technologies/practices. A cross sectional survey was employed using 50 extension workers in the area of livestock sector. Almost all the selected study variables were significantly influencing the effectiveness of dairy extension. The value of dairy extension effectiveness index was also low.  It necessitates integrated strategy; capacitating extension workers; and selection of model farmers those represent the majority of the farmers in the jurisdiction area. Keywords: Dairy extension, dissemination, extension effectiveness index, extension worke

Liming Effects on Yield and Yield Attributes of Nitrogen Fertilized and BradyrhizobiaInoculated Soybean (Glycine max L.) Grown in Acidic Soil at Jimma, South Western Ethiopia

Soil acidity is one of the major soil chemical constraints which limit agricultural productivity in the mid and highlands of Ethiopia. The study was conducted to evaluate the influence of lime, bradyrhizobia and nitrogen fertilizer on yield and yield attributes of soybean in acid soil at melko south western Ethiopia during June to October of 2012. The crop was evaluated in terms of pod number, seed per pod, seed yield, hundred seed weight, straw yield and harvest index. The result revealed that pod number per plant, seed yield, seeds per pod and hundred seed weight were significantly (P < 0.05) increased when lime and bradyrhizobia were simultaneously used. However, straw yield and harvest index were not significantly (P > 0.05) improved by lime and bradyrhizobia. Except seeds number per pod and seed yield, the effect of nitrogen on yield attributes was not observed. It had neither interaction with lime and bradyrhizobia nor its effect on yield attribute was significant. Saving currency invested to buy chemical nitrogen fertilizer and maintaining soil healthy, simultaneous use of lime and bradyrhizobia give similar seed yield with the one recorded when nitrogen fertilizer is applied. Keywords: Soil acidity, Bradyrhizobia, Lime, Nitrogen fertilizer, Soybean, Yield, Yield attribute

Liming Effects on Yield and Yield Attributes of Nitrogen Fertilized and Bradyrhizobia Inoculated Soybean (Glycine max L.) Grown in Acidic soil at Jimma, South Western Ethiopia

Soil acidity is one of the major soil chemical constraints which limit agricultural productivity in the mid and highlands of Ethiopia. The study was conducted to evaluate the influence of lime, bradyrhizobia and nitrogen fertilizer on yield and yield attributes of soybean in acid soil at melko south western Ethiopia during June to October of 2012. The crop was evaluated in terms of pod number, seed per pod, seed yield, hundred seed weight, straw yield and harvest index. The result revealed that pod number per plant, seed yield, seeds per pod and hundred seed weight were significantly (P < 0.05) increased when lime and bradyrhizobia were simultaneously used. However, straw yield and harvest index were not significantly (P > 0.05) improved by lime and bradyrhizobia. Except seeds number per pod and seed yield, the effect of nitrogen on yield attributes was not observed. It had neither interaction with lime and bradyrhizobia nor its effect on yield attribute was significant. Saving currency invested to buy chemical nitrogen fertilizer and maintaining soil healthy, simultaneous use of lime and bradyrhizobia give similar seed yield with the one recorded when nitrogen fertilizer is applied. Keywords: Bradyrhizobia, Lime, Soybean, Yield, Yield attribute

The Genealogy and Settlement Pattern of the Oromo of Gumma Kingdom (C.1820- 1880s)

The main Objective of this study is to unearth the history of the lineage of the Oromo of Gumma kingdom. In this study the research employed both the primary (oral sources mainly) and secondary sources and different data gathering instruments. The result shows that, the Oromo of Gumma, during their expansion into the present areas the area was inhabited by the pre-Oromo communities, Kaffa and Ennarya were the most known. The settlement pattern   of the Oromo of Gumma was the earlier one to be settled in the Gibe region. Again, there were different tribes, clans and sub-clans of Maccaa inhabited in Gumma. Adami and Dagoye are among the major tribes and the remaining are sub and sub-sub clans of Maccaa. Their expansion brought about a cultural assimilation of these different non-Oromo ethnic groups and also expulsion of some pre-Oromo communities. Gumma Oromo have occupied the whole fertile and suitable highland areas. Keywords:Genealogy, Gumma kingdom, pre-Oromo inhabited and assimilation DOI: 10.7176/RHSS/12-13-01 Publication date:July 31st 202

Equity and quality? Challenges for early childhood and primary education in Ethiopia, India and Peru

Part of the "Studies in Early Transitions" series, this Working Paper draws on interviews and observations carried out as part of Young Lives, a 15-year longitudinal study of childhood poverty in Ethiopia, India, Peru and Vietnam based at the University of Oxford’s Department of International Development. This paper focuses on the challenges of translating into practice the potential of quality early childhood care and education to transform young lives. These include building a positive equity agenda, setting clear policy objectives, raising quality standards, building the skills and motivation of teachers, and recognising where equity goals can be incompatible with a market-led private system. The paper asks which children do and do not have access to an early childhood programme, and explores children’s and parents’ views about the quality of what is on offer